Examining the intersection of psychology and video games

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Come See Me Lecture at the Login 2010 Conference

Have you ever wanted to hear me go on about the psychology of video games without that annoying Internet between us? You HAVE? Are you going to be in Seattle, Washington, USA on May 14th at 2pm? You ARE? Well, you’re in luck, because I’m teaming up with some of the folks at GameSpy Technology to lecture at the 2010 Login Conference in beautiful 1 Seattle Washington.

Nifty title, you say, but you need more info? Fine. Here’s an official sounding summary:

What can decades of research by psychologists tell us about how gamers behave differently when playing video games with strangers versus with friends or alone? Under what conditions will grown men and women in multiplayer games do things like cheat, abuse glitches, hurl vulgarities, form allegiances, return favors, play fair, welcome newcomers, and form communities that persist outside of your game?

Hey, this stuff is human nature, and psychologists and behavioral economists have been looking at these kinds of things in other contexts for a long time. They just use their own jargon –stuff like prospect theory, deindividuation, reciprocity, game theory, social identity building, decision-making heuristics, person-organization-fit, distributive justice, and other fancy terms. Sometimes they even draw diagrams.

In this session, a Ph.D. in psychology who also happens to be an avid gamer will bridge the gap between these two worlds by looking at what the science of psychology has to tell us about why gamers do what they do when they’re in groups and how game designers might leverage these kinks in the human mind to design better experiences for everyone involved. Each topic will be accompanied by a review of relevant scientific research from the fields of psychology and behavioral economics, as well as real-world data from actual gamers to back up the claims and test the hypotheses.

That’s STILL not enough information for you? Okay, okay. Here’s an outline of the actual lecture:

Introduction

Who we are

The psychology of video games

GameSpy Tech

How the two are working together

I provide expertise on psychology and research methodology

They provide expertise on community building and hard data

What we hope to accomplish in this lecture

Some education

Some entertainment

Some solid ideas for things you can experiment with yourself

The Glitcher’s Dilemma – To cheat, abuse glitches, or play fair?

Game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma

Concept overview

Examples from video games

Review of theory and experimental data

Classical experiments

Effects of knowing the other person

Effects of anonymity

Effects of replaying games with same person

Things you can do

Reducing anonymity

Facilitating “tit for tat” strategies

Increasing the public nature of play

How to Build an Antisocial Jerk for Fun and Profit

Deindividuation – How to make people lie, steal, and cheat (or not)

Concept overview

Examples from video games

Review of theory and experimental data

Classical experiments

Effects of anonymity on antisocial behavior

Effects of being in a group

Effects of transferred responsibility

Effects of leaders and role models on group behavior

Things you can do

Reducing (or enhancing) anonymity

Facilitate communication and information sharing among groups

Provide queues for desired behavior

Designate group leaders and reward proper behavior

Fanboys and Witch Hunts

Social Identity Theory – “Us” vs. “Them”

Concept overview

Examples from video games

Review of theory and experimental data

Classical experiments

How groups form

How groups unform

Things you can do

Providing queues to help groups form

Helping groups NOT form

Facilitating the sharing of group identities

Back Scratches All Around – The Power of Reciprocity

Reciprocity – Returning favors and building social debt

Concept overview

Examples from video games

Review of theory and experimental data

Classical experiments

The evolutionary psychology angle

Things you can do

Build “favors” into your game

Allow people to track each other down outside of game

Facilitate and frame information about favors

Make it about the individual, not the team

The People (and Orcs) make the place – How Guilds Form

The Attraction-Selection-Attrition model of organization development

Concept overview

Examples from video games

Applicability to guilds, clans, fan sites, messageboards, etc.

Review of theory and experimental data

Classical experiments and theory

The importance of leaders

The importance culture

Things you can do

Build tools organizations can use to communicate culture

Build tools for leaders to use

Build tools for organizations to evaluate new members

Q&A to Fill Remaining Time

Act now and I’ll throw in this Speaker Biography:

Jamie Madigan has a Ph.D. in psychology with an emphasis in Industrial-Organizational psychology and works for the federal government as a personnel psychologist. He is a life-long gamer and spent several years in the gaming business at GameSpy Industries where he assisted in the development of many web properties, including FilePlanet.com, arguably the Internet’s largest distributor of game-related files. He currently runs www.psychologyofgames.com, a weblog dedicated to using psychology to understand why game players and developers do what they do.

So, if you’re going to Login by any chance, please come and see me! And bring a friend. Or an enemy. I honestly don’t care which.